US judge allows passengers to sue airlines for cramped seats

A District Court Judge has allowed three airline passengers who have claimed that cramped seats gave them deep vein thrombosis (DVT) to continue with their lawsuits against Singapore, Delta and US Airways.

Judge Vaughn Walker has previously tossed out 37 similar lawsuits due to the establishment of an international treaty protecting carriers from paying damages to passengers who are injured during routine travel.

In these recent cases, the judge claimed these three incidents were different because the three passengers had complained of the cramped seats to cabin crew.

And if the passengers were allowed to switch to other seats with more space, the injuries could have been avoided.

Peter

Hmmm airlines do inform you to move around on long flights, so not sure how this applies.

How can it be proved that the DVT was caused on any particular flight? The only way would be if the passengers were scanned immediately before the flight and then afterwards having taken no other flights.

Sounds to me like another example of litigation mania. The airlines will just up the ticket prices to cover the costs of legal defence in such cases or have business class only flights with fares to match.

I had a colleague who got this "economy class syndrome" in his leg when he flew out from Australia in Business Class. I wonder if he could have sued?

everybody can check how much space each ealine is giving on each airplane and route - the more you pay the more space you have.

Those people were ill before they travelled, knowing about it they should not travel by air but by the other means of transport. If they decided to fly they were taking the risk - still there are medicines to be taken before flight, exercises to be done before and during the flight, special socks to be worn or business/first class to be bought